The Rye Patch Reservoir is a

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

on the

Humboldt River The Humboldt River is the longest river in the northern and central part of Nevada. It extends in a general east-to-west direction from its headwaters in northern Nevada's Jarbidge Mountains, Jarbidge, Independence Mountains, Independence, and ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

. It is located about northeast of the town of Lovelock, and is managed by the Pershing County Water Conservation District. The reservoir stores water for the agricultural area surrounding Lovelock, which is at the far downstream reach of the Humboldt, near the

Humboldt Sink The Humboldt Sink is an intermittent dry lake bed, approximately 11 mi (18 km) long, and 4 mi (6 km) across, in northwestern Nevada in the United States. The body of water in the sink is known as Humboldt Lake. The sink and i ...

. Since the Lovelock area receives a mere of rain annually, agriculture requires irrigation, but the high variability of the Humboldt (which often runs completely dry) means that water storage is necessary for irrigation to be feasible.

Rye Patch Settlement

The settlement of Rye Patch got its start in the early 1860s, and at one time included a school and boarding house. Rye Patch was named for the wild dry grass that grew in the area. In 1869, the Central Pacific Railroad came to the region and the Rye Patch station opened. The stamp mill at Rye Patch processed ore from the mines at Star City, Unionville and Rochester until the late 1870s. The Rye Patch Post Office was in operation from June 1872 until November 1916.

Rye Patch Dam

In 1933, the

Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it ...

decided to build the Rye Patch Dam to impound the Humboldt and create the reservoir. The dam was built between 1935 and 1936 to the west of Rye Patch station. A

New Deal The New Deal was a series of wide-reaching economic, social, and political reforms enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938, in response to the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depressi ...

project intended to help fight the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

, the dam was funded by the

Public Works Administration The Public Works Administration (PWA), part of the New Deal of 1933, was a large-scale public works construction agency in the United States headed by United States Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. It was ...

and employed workers from the

Civilian Conservation Corps The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary government unemployment, work relief program that ran from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men ages 18–25 and eventually expanded to ages 17–28. The CCC was ...

. The dam was expanded in 1975–1976, raising the dam to provide the reservoir with more storage capacity. Rye Patch Reservoir also includes the Pitt–Taylor Reservoirs, two off-stream storage basins that predate Rye Patch. They were built in 1913 by Humboldt–Lovelock Irrigation, Light and Power Company, a private venture run by William C. Pitt, an upper Lovelock Valley rancher, and John G. Taylor, an upper valley farmer and sheep rancher. These reservoirs are less efficient than Rye Patch, losing much water to evaporation, so they are used only for additional capacity in high-flow years. The reservoir has experienced sedimentation, a problem common to reservoirs in which

sediment Sediment is a solid material that is transported to a new location where it is deposited. It occurs naturally and, through the processes of weathering and erosion, is broken down and subsequently sediment transport, transported by the action of ...

settles out of the river flow and decreases the capacity of the reservoir. A 1972 study estimated that the reservoir had lost 10% of its capacity to sedimentation since construction. The reservoir has come under criticism, particularly from upstream users who accuse Lovelock farmers of attempting to monopolize the waters of the Humboldt for their own use. For instance, when the reservoir was nearly drained in 1992 to provide water to the farms, anglers at the Rye Patch State Recreation Area complained of a massive fish kill. The project has also been criticized for single-minded focus on irrigation and skewed cost-benefit ratios. Furthermore, a study by the

Nevada State Museum Nevada State Museum may refer to: * Nevada State Museum, Carson City * Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas {{disambig ...

in 1987 concluded that construction of the Rye Patch and Pitt–Taylor Reservoirs flooded archaeological and paleontological sites that showed evidence of prehistoric human habitation.

Notes

{{authority control Humboldt River Reservoirs in Nevada Dams in Nevada United States Bureau of Reclamation dams Dams completed in 1936 Lakes of Pershing County, Nevada 1936 establishments in Nevada